Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions with Stored and Cooled Radioactive Beams

In the past decade, research into low-energy nuclear reactions has entered a new era in heavy ion storage rings. At the GSI storage rings ESR and CRYRING we are now able to conduct reaction cross section measurements with decelerated radioactive beams. In this talk I will give an overview of the different experimental campaignes that address astrophysical issues in this context.

One of these initiatives is the proton-capture campaign in the ESR, aiming to directly measure proton-induced reactions of key importance for explosive nucleosynthesis. In the latest experiment, we successfully applied this technique to a radioactive beam for the first time.
Further, there is the NECTAR project, which targets neutron-induced reactions using the indirect surrogate technique to constrain reaction theory in cases where measurement by traditional methods is impossible. The proof-of-principle experiment has been recently accomplished, and there are ongoing plans to extend the method.

Lastly, the CARME setup has recently been installed and commissioned in CRYRING. This versatile array of Si-detectors surrounding the internal gas target enables a wide range of low-energy studies with radioactive beams to be pursued.

Recent results and developments as well as future plans within those projects will be discussed.